President Trump has spent the past half decade working with his allies on a revisionist history of Jan. 6, 2021, trying to rebrand the rioters who breached the Capitol that day as persecuted patriots and transform an act of political violence into what he once described as a “day of love.”
The latest chapter in that alternate account was written on Saturday evening when 300 people gathered at an arts center in West Palm Beach, Fla., down the road from Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence. They were there for the debut screening of “American Martyrs,” a new documentary about the far-right Proud Boys who went from being prosecuted for the Capitol attack to being granted clemency by the president.
The gala gathering — with its swag bags and red carpet — was MAGA’s version of a Hollywood premiere. There was George Santos, the convicted fraudster and former Republican congressman, standing in the check-in line. And over there was Rudolph W. Giuliani, the presidential friend and disbarred New York lawyer, sitting for an interview with Gateway Pundit. The surreal soiree, M.C.ed by Lara Logan, the former “60 Minutes” correspondent, was part cultural event, part Trump rally.
“I was in solitary confinement — now I’m on a movie poster,” Mr. Tarrio said during the mix-and-mingle before the screening. In reality, the crimes that the Proud Boys were convicted of — including engaging in seditious conspiracy — were among the most serious faced by any of the rioters. Mr. Tarrio alone was sentenced to 22 years in federal custody, the longest prison term issued in any of the cases.